While the alcohol industry and restaurants count the costs of tighter restrictions, organised business says additional income support will soon be on its way for those businesses that have been disrupted.
The level 4 restrictions include a fourth liquor ban since the end of March last year and a prohibition on dining in restaurants. SAB and Vinpro are taking legal action against the liquor ban.
Following a Wednesday meeting of the National Economic Development & Labour Council (Nedlac), Martin Kingston, chair of the steering committee of Business for SA (B4SA), said that though he could not speak for the government or the Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF), there was a “very constructive discussion” among all parties.
He said the government had made it clear during the discussions at Nedlac that it would again implement Covid-19 temporary employee/employer relief scheme (Ters) benefits. He said the government needed to work out how far the money “they've got available can go without prejudicing the stability of the UIF”.
“There is certainly enough for the next two weeks and, we believe, for considerably longer. We are just talking about the modalities, fine-tuning certain aspects of the scheme, who it applies to and for how long it will endure.”
He said there was “an acknowledgement by all sides that there was a need to continue providing support, in some cases retrospective support, for example for the events industry and then particularly the leisure, hospitality and tourism sector”.
Kingston said this should be “capable of being achieved by the beginning” of the week and that the employment & labour department would have to get the ball rolling.
He said there were discussions about how long additional Ters benefits should be extended, because “we are of the view that the lockdown is going to extend for longer than two weeks”.
There is certainly enough [money] for the next two weeks.
— Martin Kingston, chair of Business for SA
Earlier in the week, labour minister Thulas Nxesi said “social partners” involved at Nedlac would “thrash out a plan for income support” for those industries closed under the regulations. The department had not immediately responded to a request for further comment.
Sandile Zungu, president of the Black Business Council, which is a member of B4SA, said that though he empathised with the difficult decisions the government had to make to deal with an “inferno of Covid-19 infections”, the level 4 restrictions were “very harsh insofar as they pulled down the curtains on sit-down restaurants as well as on alcohol sales”. Zungu said the alcohol sales ban had ramifications for the entire supply chain.
“If you talk about alcohol sales bans, the packaging industry suffers, the glass industry suffers, the transport and logistics sectors suffer, and the raw material suppliers to the glass sector suffer. Some of the grain that is important in brewing of alcohol gets condemned so there is a lot of agricultural production that is condemned.”
Zungu said that instead of shutting down sit-down dining, the government could have reduced the allowable capacity.
Wendy Alberts, CEO of the Restaurant Association of SA (Rasa), said this week that she had written to President Cyril Ramaphosa, imploring him to reconsider the restrictions and allow sit-down dining.
She had also spoken to Nxesi about expediting the Ters fund for relief support.
“I’ve also, on a daily basis, written to minister of tourism [Mmamoloko Kubayi] asking her to look at proposals to reopen the industry with additional protocols we can add to our business to allow us to trade,” said Alberts.
She said large sit-down restaurants could not survive by providing only takeaways. Though it was too early to say how many restaurants would close permanently because of the latest restrictions, Rasa estimates close to 50% have closed since lockdowns began last year. From about 21,000 restaurants before the pandemic, the number has dwindled to 11,000. She said estimates are that about 750,000 jobs in the sector have been lost since the first lockdown.
Ocean Basket CEO and spokesperson for The Restaurant Collective, Grace Hardy, said the latest restrictions come just as the sit-down restaurant sector was starting to see “a glimmer of light”.
She is urging the government to “open up the restaurants for sit-down meals as a matter of urgency and come and talk to us ... Let us show you our protocols and let us collaborate on finding a way to police it. But it can’t be either you open or you close. There are so many other options.”
SAB this week launched a case seeking to overturn the booze ban. It said it had “no other alternative but to defend its rights. to protect its business and urgently overturn this decision”. A date for this legal action is still to be set. SAB is continuing with a separate case to get a ruling on the constitutionality of alcohol bans.
The latest alcohol ban comes soon after SAB earmarked a R2bn investment for its local operations in 2022. Asked what the latest ban could mean for this investment, SAB said: “With the reinstatement of a fourth ban on alcohol, with unclear timelines, nor official documented reasons provided, the company continues to review its options including its investments.”
Vinpro began an urgent interim interdict application this week to lift the ban on the sale of wine in the Western Cape. Vinpro said the government’s legal counsel requested a short postponement to enable the government to file its answering affidavits over the weekend, followed by Vinpro’s reply as the applicant. The case will be heard on July 7.
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